"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Sempiternal

Sempiternal means dateless; having no known beginning and presumably no end; seemingly everlasting or eternal. I'm not quite sure of where the difference lies between that and eternal unless there is a slight element of uncertainty about it. It may be that the crossword compiler who used it was simply filling in spaces! Anyone who knows if there is a difference might like to comment.
 

1 comment:

  1. Redundant. Just another way of saying the same thing. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!

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